


The Life We Lead

by gayornay



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crime Solving, Detective!Lexa, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Happy Ending, Mystery, Private Investigator!Clarke, Slow Burn, really it's more of a rollercoaster than that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22189813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayornay/pseuds/gayornay
Summary: When a local state university student disappears, Private Investigator Clarke Griffin and her team are asked to find out what happened to him. In order to do so she needs to work with the police department, specifically one maddening detective named Lexa Woods whose hate for PI’s couldn’t be more obvious.Their personalities clash as they are forced to work together to solve this case and the mystery that unravels the closer they get to it.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 73
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter One

“Please. You have to help me.”

There’s a tremor in her voice that almost cuts through the words and Clarke doesn’t know what to say. She’s quiet for a moment as she regards the woman sitting across from her. Her glasses manage to hide most of her exhaustion, but Clarke notices anyway; dark bags under brown, hopeful eyes a clear sign of fitful sleep.

There’s a bunched up flyer on top of the desk that separates them, the same one she printed about a month ago and scattered around the University District, among other places. She thinks the message was very clear and it speaks to the desperation the other woman must be feeling if she came to see her anyway.

“Mrs. Green,” she starts and pauses. She can’t just brush her off, needs to find the right way to decline the request for their service. “Your situation is… a bit out of our league, I’m afraid.” She averts her eyes for a split second before looking at her once again.

“Miss Griffin, I beg you. No one is helping me and I don’t know what to do.” Mrs. Green tightens the grip around the handbag currently sitting on her lap as she leans forward, her eyes welling up with tears threatening to fall. “I just need–” her voice breaks then and Clarke swallows. 

This job wasn’t supposed to be emotional. Not for her, anyway. Catching cheaters and following money traces to stop fraud, that’s easy. Having a mother sitting in front of her, begging for help to find her missing son? That’s not what she had in mind when she opened Ark Cyber Investigations five years ago.

“I–” Clarke’s mouth opens and closes, still trying to find the right words. “We specialize in catching cheaters, Mrs. Green,” she says, her voice tired. She motions at the flyer, knows that’s exactly what it says. “We have never dealt with disappearances or–” she hesitates. “Or murder.”

Mrs. Green’s eyes widen as if the possibility hadn’t crossed her mind. Clarke knows that isn’t true, but having someone voice your concerns out loud? It makes them all the more real.

“Do-do you really think…” her voice trails off, unable to finish the sentence.

“I don’t know,” Clarke says, feeling sorry for the woman desperately trying to find answers. “I honestly don’t know. All I can say is, I don’t think we’re the right people to handle this.”

“Please,” the older woman begs one more time. “Please, give it a try. If you– if you can’t find anything I will understand. I will pay you for your time regardless,” she reassures her, as if that were the problem. “I just need to know someone is doing something.”

Clarke takes a moment to consider the person sitting on the other side of the desk. The way her grip hasn’t loosened around her bag. The way her chest rises and falls with every painful breath she takes. The way her eyes stare at her, unwavering. Clarke can’t say no. She has to at least _try_.

“Give me a few days to look into it,” Clarke finally says. “If we can’t find anything, I’m afraid there isn’t much else we can do.”

Mrs. Green nods, a small, grateful smile gracing her lips for the first time since she entered the agency. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Clarke cautions, already worried she’s given Mrs. Green too much hope. “What’s your son’s name?” she asks, picking up a pen and readying herself to take note.

“Monty,” she says in a trembling voice, like just mentioning his name is painful. “His name is Monty Green.”

::::

As the heavy front door closes behind Mrs. Green the image of hopeful brown eyes embeds itself in Clarke’s mind, forcing her to rest her back against the wooden surface for a couple of seconds, trying to calm her thoughts.

It doesn’t take long for Raven’s head to pop out of the meeting room, her body still attached to the office chair she’s sitting on. Clarke’s grateful she had already pushed herself off the door, otherwise a string of questions would surely ensue. She doesn’t want to think about the answers right now.

“What was that about?” Raven asks from across the waiting area. Her meeting with Mrs. Green had been in the office adjacent to the meeting room, but Raven wouldn’t have been able to hear any of it. Clarke approaches her friend and coworker, the faint sound of the TV tuned in to some news channel becoming more present with each step she takes.

“We may have a new case to work on,” Clarke casually explains. She walks through the waiting room and into the meeting room, going around the table in the middle to take a seat closest to the biggest window, the one that overlooks Puget Sound. Sometimes she still can’t believe she gets to work in an office with this view.

“Yeah?” Raven says, interest piqued.

Clarke runs her fingers over the table’s edge, wondering how to broach the subject. At her silence, Raven presses, “Who are we looking into this time?”

A piece of paper Clarke pulls out of her back pocket falls on the table. She uses the tips of her fingers to push it in Raven’s direction, who reaches over and picks it up, reading the name out loud.

“This case is slightly different,” Clarke provides before Raven can begin speculating why they’re looking into him. A raised eyebrow prompts her to continue. “He’s missing.”

It’s almost comical the way Raven’s eyes widen, her eyebrows shooting up. Brows furrow a second later. “Missing?”

Rare, she knows. Nothing they’ve ever dealt with before. She just couldn’t– “That was his mom,” Clarke explains. “She doesn’t know exactly how long he’s been missing for. She started getting worried when he didn’t show up for their usual Sunday lunch.”

“Did she try the police?” Raven asks. Clarke had wondered the same thing, it was one of the first things she had asked. They’re certainly more qualified to deal with something like this than they are.

“They keep passing responsibility. He’s a junior at the University of Washington, but he lives off campus. So U-Dub police says it’s not in their jurisdiction because as far as they know he wasn’t on campus when he disappeared. And SPD says it shouldn’t be them, because he goes to U-Dub.”

Raven shakes her head. “Useless,” she mutters, her distaste for cops something Clarke’s used to by now. Bad experiences with the police growing up forever tainted her opinion of them.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Clarke knows the question that will follow, but she tries not to think about it, focuses on the TV on the wall across from her instead. They’re talking about the weather and how this winter will be the wettest yet.

She rolls her eyes. Every winter in Seattle is the wettest.

“Hey, Clarke,” tentative. She knows it’s coming. “How come–” She’s surprised when Raven stops completely. For a moment Clarke expects her to rephrase, to ask anyway, but is grateful when she seems to drop it altogether.

“So,” Raven says instead of the question that’s left hanging between them. “Where do we start?”

::::

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Clarke says as she paces back and forth, her feet probably burning a hole in the meeting room’s floor. A projector pointed toward a big white wall –the one that separates this room from the office– displays several browser windows with different social media websites: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all belonging to one Monty Green.

“I haven’t dug any deeper yet, but so far everything looks… normal,” Raven says from her seat on the other side of the table. She’s leaning back on the chair, feet propped up on the furniture, a laptop placed on her thighs. A cable runs from it into the projector. “You’d expect some sort of sign, but nothing.”

It’s true. So far nothing seems out of place, his pictures and posts just speak of a regular college student leading a normal life.

Clarke can feel Raven’s mood faltering and so is hers. They rarely have trouble finding a lead or some sort of starting point that will nudge them in the right direction. Usually their job is pretty straight forward: once they know the name, they have almost everything they need at their disposal to be able to move forward.

It’s proving to be a little bit harder this time around.

“Maybe there’s nothing to investigate to begin with,” Raven says as she keeps scrolling and clicking. “Maybe he just needed a break. Can’t blame him, I’ve definitely been there.”

Clarke scratches the back of her head, something not sitting right with her. “I don’t know. It just seems... weird,” she says, staring at the Instagram profile currently displayed on the top left corner.

Raven shrugs. “Think about it. He’s a junior in college, maybe he just felt overwhelmed.”

“I know. But look.“ She walks closer to the wall and points at his most recent photo. “Does he look overwhelmed to you?” The picture in question shows a group of four people holding red solo cups, sitting around a bonfire. Monty is one of them, sitting between a boy and a girl. Another boy is sitting on the far right. They all have their arms around each other and are smiling at the camera.

Raven clicks the image in question to reveal more information. “November 12th,” she reads outloud. “This was taken less than a week ago.”

The post has several comments, but at first glance none of them stick out. The sound of the front door opening and closing interrupts Clarke before she has a chance to ask Raven to keep scrolling.

“Sorry I’m late,” Octavia says. She comes into the meeting room and walks along the wall to sit across from Raven, to the right of Clarke’s incessant pacing. She’s holding a coffee cup from Dilettante and both Clarke and Raven give her a pointed look.

“What?” Octavia asks. “You don’t want me around without my intake of coffee first.” She places her backpack on the table and pulls out her laptop. “So, what’s up?” She turns her attention to the images projected on the wall. “Ooh, have we begun project Let’s Get Clarke Laid already?”

Clarke looks at her with a frown, not missing the way Raven is signaling at her to cut it out by desperately shaking her hand by her neck.

“What?” Clarke asks.

“Nothing,” Octavia replies, wide-eyed and staring at Raven.

“What the–”

“It’s a new case,” Raven interrupts, steering the conversation back to business. “ _Potential_ new business,” she corrects herself.

“Oh!” Octavia’s eyes light up. If Clarke didn’t already know how much Octavia loves catching low-level cheaters, this would be a dead giveaway. One time when they were discussing their favorite thing about the job Octavia had said she really enjoys how they turn into such cry babies when caught.

“I knew those flyers would pay off,” Octavia says, tilting her head to the side to examine the picture displayed in front of her. It had been her idea to try and expand their clientele by reaching out to college students and not just older people going through some sort of mid-life crisis.

“Monty Green,” she reads. “Huh. Doesn’t really look like a cheater.” Not that cheaters look like anything in particular. They come in all forms, shapes and sizes, but throughout the years they’ve managed to develop a sort of sixth sense when it comes to anticipating whether they’re actually doing what they’re being accused of or not.

“He hasn’t cheated,” Clarke clarifies.

“That we know of,” Raven adds and shrugs at Clarke’s glare.

“Fraud?” Octavia asks, frowning. “Wouldn’t have imagined that either.”

“Actually,” Clarke starts, but trails off. She clears her throat. Octavia looks at her expectantly. “Actually, it’s none.” Octavia’s frown deepens.

“He’s missing,” Raven chimes in.

“What?” Octavia’s eyebrows rise, forehead wrinkling.

“Or dead,” Raven adds and Clarke glares at her. ‘ _What?_ ’ she mouths, as if she didn’t already know.

“Be more crass, will ya.” Clarke shakes her head and turns her attention back to Octavia who still looks shell-shocked. “It’s a potential case, nothing sure yet.”

“I thought you said–” she stops herself before she can finish that sentence.

 _No, Octavia. We’re not looking into it. Or any other case like it. We’re keeping it simple._ The words come back as if it had been yesterday. That was the one and only time Octavia had suggested expanding the types of cases they accept, never pushing the issue again.

Clarke shrugs and looks away.

“Poor Clarke couldn’t say no to the old lady,” Raven says, her words diverting focus from the real reason and Clarke’s grateful for it.

Octavia chuckles. “Oh, is that why we’ve been unsuccessful so far?” she asks Raven. “Here we were, trying to find hot and _young_ prospects. Who knew we just had to up the age limit.”

Clarke catches Raven glaring at Octavia again, causing her to shut her mouth and innocently look around.

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Clarke asks, arms crossed in front of her chest, her eyes moving from one coworker to the other.

“Nothing,” they say in unison and that’s suspicious enough.

“Guys, serious–“

“Anyway, back to business,” Raven interrupts for the second time and Clarke’s nose flares. She _will_ get to the bottom of whatever these two are doing. But maybe now is not the time, she thinks as she contemplates the wall again.

From his various profiles and the information his mom had provided, Clarke can gather Monty Green is a 21 year old Chemistry junior at UW. He’s Asian, seems to be of average height, maybe on the shorter side compared to his other male friends, average build, dark hair and dark brown eyes, much like his mother’s.

The look on Mrs. Green’s face flashes before Clarke’s eyes again and she shudders. Such pained, hopeful eyes. Clarke feels the weight of the world on her shoulders. What if they can’t find anything? What if they can’t help? What if, what if, _what if_.

“Clarke?” Octavia’s voice startles her back to reality. She shakes her head as a way to dissipate her doubts and turns to look at her. “I said, why this case? It’s not the first time someone has mistaken us for that type of PI agency, but you’re usually pretty good at steering them away.”

Clarke shrugs. She may have been safe from answering this question earlier, but she knew it would come up eventually.

“I don’t know. She–” she swallows. “She seemed so desperate. Said no one was helping her and needed _someone_ to do something.” Her shoulders drop and she lets out a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t not try,” she sounds defeated and she knows it. She walks over to the closest chair and sits down with a thud.

Octavia regards her closely, her eyes tracing Clarke’s face. She feels the scrutiny of her gaze and it almost makes her squirm. She knows her friend is just searching to make sure there’s nothing else, but Clarke must do a good job of revealing nothing because Octavia stops soon after. “Ah, Clarke Griffin. Ever the heart of gold.”

Clarke grabs a pen that’s currently laying on the table and throws it at her. “Shut up,” she says, a small smile forming on her lips. Work and life and pretty much everything is so much better with these two around. Even if she feels like killing them like, 99.9% of the time.

“Hey, look,” Raven says. She obviously checked out of their conversation minutes ago and had gone back to researching. She has opened several more windows and has them all lined up next to each other. The latest Instagram picture is once again displayed in full at the top, comment section scrolled all the way to the bottom.

“This girl here,” she says as she uses her mouse pointer to hover over one of the profiles she had opened. “She seems to be the same girl from Monty’s photo.”

With the ability to compare the bigger profile picture to the campfire one they’re able to confirm it’s the same girl. Moving the mouse over to the campfire picture a tag appears under her face: _mcharper_ , same username.

“She left that comment on November 15th,” Octavia says.

“Missed you in class,” Clarke reads. “Hope to see you tomorrow, thumbs up emoji, nerd emoji, school books emoji...” Clarke sighs. “She basically used all of the emojis.”

Raven squints her eyes to focus on the icons. “No eggplant emoji. You think that rules her out as a potential girlfriend?” Raven half-jokes and Clarke shrugs. She doesn’t know if they’re something more, but it’s pretty clear they’re at least close friends.

“So he missed class on the 15th,” Clarke says, trying to connect the dots. She moves her eyes to another window, the one displaying Monty’s Twitter with both his tweets and replies. A profile picture catches her attention, but before she can say anything Octavia speaks up.

“Hey, those two seem to be the same person,” she points out between the tweet directed at Monty and one of the faces in the bonfire picture. Raven looks closely and then nods.

“Jasper Jordan,” Raven says, reading the name displayed on his tweet. When she hovers over the face on the Instagram picture the tag appears once again, and Clarke can see his username: _jjjjordan_. It matches the Twitter handle.

“Dude, where are you?” she starts reading the tweet Jasper left on Monty’s feed. “You missed today’s test, the professor is pissed.” Clarke frowns. “This was written on November 18th. That was yesterday.”

Octavia starts typing down on her computer. “So, we know he was at least last seen on November 12th,” she says, the clicking of her keyboard accompanying her words. “He didn’t show up to class three days later, on…” she seems to be checking her calendar as she pauses, “Friday. Then on Monday he still isn’t showing up to class. Which, if these messages are any indication, isn’t a normal thing for him.”

“If I had a penny for every class I missed,” Raven chuckles.

“You’d be rich and wouldn’t be working here,” Clarke finishes with a laugh. “Kinda wish you had gotten paid,” she teases.

Raven laughs, shaking her head. “Please. This place would be nothing without me.”

“Hey! I’m useful, too,” Octavia claims.

“Sure you are, sweetie,” Raven says condescendingly and the same pen Clarke had thrown Octavia’s way now flies across the table towards Raven’s head. She manages to duck and avoid getting hit, not without sticking her tongue out at Octavia.

“Missed,” she mocks and Octavia fishes into her backpack for something else to throw at her.

“Let’s just say you’re _both_ a very important part of our business, okay?” Clarke interrupts. This stops them from continuing their bickering any longer. They seem to relax and Clarke regards them with a smile, thankful she gets to work with both of them.

Returning her attention back to the projection on the wall, Clarke asks, “What about the other guy?” She nods toward the boy standing to the far right. He’s tall and skinny, his smile not as bright as everyone else’s. “Has he posted anything?”

Raven hovers over the picture, the tag this time displaying the username _justmurphy_. First she scrolls through the comments, but his username doesn’t show up. Raven shrugs, hovering over the face again until she can click on the handle, opening his Instagram profile. Clarke catches a glimpse of his name, John Murphy, before Raven clicks on the latest picture.

“It’s dated June 9th,” she says.

“Weird,” Octavia says. She’s looking at her own computer. “He’s definitely part of their group, he’s in pretty much every group picture Monty has.”

Raven goes back to Monty’s Instagram feed and starts scrolling through it. Like Octavia had said, all four faces appear in pretty much every picture. Sometimes it’s just Monty and Jasper, sometimes it’s just him and Harper, but for the most part it’s all four of them. Clarke stares at the projection, hand on her chin as she processes the information they’ve gathered.

“Maybe he’s not into social media as much?”

Raven laughs. “Please. In this time and age, if you don’t participate in social media you are basically non-existent.”

“Maybe he doesn’t use Instagram anymore?” Octavia asks. “He could be more into Snapchat now. What if he still uses Facebook?”

“Ugh, my mom has Facebook and it’s the most annoying thing,” Clarke says, remembering the last time she had logged in only to see Abby Griffin sharing posts left and right.

“What do you even need a Facebook for, mom?” Clarke had asked her the first time her mom brought it up.

“I want to know what’s going on with your life, and since you’re not very good at sharing,” she replied and Clarke rolled her eyes. Her mom wasn’t going to be able to find a lot of information about Clarke on Facebook, but that didn’t stop her from creating an account anyway, which she now uses to spread information no one asked for.

“Oh, I’m Clarke,” Raven says, breaking Clarke from her thoughts. “I have a mom who cares about me,” she mocks. Even though Raven knows the whole story, it has never stopped her from giving Clarke a hard time for not being more grateful to have a mom who’s present in her life.

“Shut up, Raven,” Clarke says with an eye roll. Octavia casts a small smile her way, understanding. She usually lets her get away with it more than Raven does.

“It’s strange, though,” Raven says, bringing their attention back to the case. _Potential case_ , Clarke reminds herself, although she’s finding herself more and more intrigued by it. She’s too curious for her own good. “If I go further back he has definitely commented on Monty’s pictures.”

Clarke sees what Raven is referring to when she scrolls down enough that when she clicks on any group picture several comments from him appear on the screen in front of her. ‘We gotta go back!’ reads one. ‘Dude that’s awesome’, reads another one. He has pretty much commented on every picture except for the last one.

“Did the mom say anything about the police?” Octavia asks.

“Not much,” Clarke says to bring her up to speed. “Just that they weren’t being very helpful.”

“Surprising, right?” Raven asks and of course she’s being sarcastic.

“Maybe we should start there?” Octavia proposes, typing something on her computer before turning it to show Clarke the website she had just pulled up. “I know he goes to U-Dub, but if he wasn’t on campus when he disappeared maybe we should try SPD’s North Precinct first?”

Clarke nods. “Any names? Who do I look for?” They’ve only ever had contact with Seattle Police’s fraud department, so she doesn’t know who or where to go to when it comes to a missing person.

Octavia clicks and types away for a few minutes until she finds what she’s looking for. “Looks like you’ll need to speak to,” she reaches for a stack of post-its and a pen, scribbling down a name on a yellow piece of paper. “Detective Woods,” she says, handing the piece of paper to Clarke. The Detective’s name is neatly written on it, as well as the address to the police station.

“Got it. Thanks.” Clarke folds the piece of paper and puts it in the back pocket of her jeans. She checks her watch and reaches for the jacket that’s currently hanging on one of the chairs. “I’ll head over there now, try to beat rush hour.”

“Need me to come with?” Octavia asks, but Clarke shakes her head.

“No, I’d rather you stay here and help Raven find out as much as you can about this.” Octavia nods and Raven immediately starts typing again. “Nothing illegal, Raven,” she feels the need to remind her and Raven scoffs, offended.

“Me? Never.”

“I mean it. We don’t know if we’re even taking this case yet. No hacking his accounts or anything until we have a clearer picture.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Raven says, placing her hand on her forehead and extending it forward in perfect military form.

“Dork,” Clarke laughs and shakes her head. She checks her jacket pocket for her car keys and heads out the door once she finds them. “See you later,” she calls right before the door closes behind her.

::::

Approximately twenty minutes later (thanks to mid-day traffic) Clarke pulls into the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct parking lot. An SUV is pulling out of a stall just as she drives in, so she only needs to wait for a few seconds before pulling into the now empty spot.

She reaches for the post-it note in her back pocket as she exists her car, heading toward the main entrance once it’s securely held in her hand. Pushing through glass doors she walks into the Precinct, past the vestibule and into the lobby.

“Hi,” Clarke says to the man sitting behind the front desk. “My name is Clarke Griffin and I’m looking for Detective Woods,” she explains, reading the plaque with his name on it. _Gustus Hawkins_. He’s tall and big, Clarke notices, perfect man to guard the main entrance.

“Business?” he asks and Clarke reaches into her jacket to pull out her business card. He takes it, looks at it, looks at her, shrugs and hands it back. “Through that hallway,” he says, pointing behind him. “Once you’ve walked past the door take a left and head straight to the middle desk by the window.”

Clarke nods curtly and walks in the direction he pointed. She looks around curiously, always impressed by how chaotic, yet calm everything seems to be inside a police station. Phones are ringing, people are chatting, others are grunting as they wait in handcuffs, and it’s all just a normal day for them.

Pushing through the doors as indicated, she takes an immediate left and scans the room before heading toward the window, middle desk in sight. A man is sitting to the right side of it, going through some paperwork.

“Hi, Detective Woods?” she says as she approaches him. He looks up and greets her with a warm smile, which she reciprocates, extending her hand to introduce herself. He seems kind and Clarke thinks this may be a productive meeting after all.

“I’m–“

“I’m Detective Woods,” she hears from her left. She turns her attention to look at the person standing beside her, who’s now moving to sit across from who she assumed was Detective Woods. Looking down at the desk they share, Clarke now sees that there’s two plaques on the wooden surface, the other Detective’s clearly closer to him.

Clarke feels her cheeks reddening. “Of course. My apologies,” she says, flustered. In her defense though, Gustus was not clear enough. And she had completely missed the second plaque.

Detective Woods is, for lack of a better word, intimidating. Green eyes stare at her expectantly. Her face tight, no sign of a smile or any friendly gesture at all, but she radiates _something_. Something Clarke can’t name or put her finger to, and she finds herself dumbstruck for a second or two.

Or five.

Yeah, more like ten.

“And you are…?” Detective Woods says, snapping Clarke out of it.

“Griffin,” she says, this time extending her hand to the right person. “Clarke Griffin,” she internally shakes her head. Who the fuck do you think you are? Bond, James Bond?

Detective Woods just nods, her eyes moving to the paperwork currently sitting in front of her, Clarke’s hand completely ignored.

“Alright, then,” Clarke mutters.

“I’m Lincoln, by the way,” the man who she had mistaken for Detective Woods says, the same warm smile still on his face. Oh, how she wishes she could work with him instead. “Pleasure,” he says.

“Likewise,” Clarke replies. “Perhaps you–“

“What can I help you with today, Miss Griffin?” Detective Woods says without looking up from her paperwork.

“Uh, I–” Clarke clears her throat and turns her attention back to the woman sitting in front of her. She looks around until her eyes find a chair and she brings it closer to the Detective’s desk. As she sits down, Clarke notices there’s a small stack of business cards close to the window and she can make out the name _Detective Lexa Woods_ alongside some contact information _._ “Actually, Lexa,” she says, trying the name. “Can I call you Lexa?”

“Detective Woods is fine,” her stone cold reply is all Clarke needs to know not to mess with her anymore.

“Right. Detective Woods,” she repeats. “Could you, uh, could you give me a minute of your time?” Clarke asks, irritated. She understands she’s busy. Hell, they’re all busy and trying to do their jobs, but it wouldn’t hurt for her to lift her eyes for two damn seconds.

“I’m busy,” Detective Woods says, moving her hand over her desk to bring Clarke’s attention to the mountain of paperwork currently sitting on it.

“I can help with that,” Lincoln chimes in and if he wasn’t a police officer currently sitting in a police station, Clarke would be afraid for his life.

“I got it, Lincoln,” Detective Woods says, giving him a warning look. “I can multitask.”

Clarke sees Lincoln nod out of the corner of her eye, returning his attention back to his own paperwork.

“Look, I know you’re busy, but this is important,” Clarke insists, leaning forward, trying to force Detective Woods to look at her.

“Are you implying this is not?” she asks, pointing at the file currently laid before her.

“I– That’s not what I–“ Clarke sighs and takes a deep breath. Let’s try this again. “My name’s Clarke Griffin–”

“You already said that,” Detective Woods interrupts and Clarke’s sure her head is going to explode any second now. But she refuses to engage. She is here to gather information and she won’t leave until she does.

“Right. I’m a Private Investigator and–“

Detective Woods scoffs. “Of course you are.”

Her tone makes Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

“Go on.” Detective Woods motions for her to continue. Clarke takes a deep breath, pushing down her frustration and focusing on the reason why she’s here instead.

“I’m investigating a missing person’s case.”

“Okay.”

“Have you spoken to the victim’s mom?”

Detective Woods shrugs. And she’s still not taking her eyes off of whatever she’s working on. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t know their name. As safe as this city may be compared to the national average, we still get more than one missing person’s report at a time.”

Clarke wants to growl and snap. She wants to hit the stupid pen away from her hand and push all of the Detective’s paperwork to the floor. Instead, she lets out a puff of air and plasters a fake smile on her face.

“Monty Green. His name is Monty Green. His mother’s name is Hannah Green. She would’ve been the one you talked to,” Clarke says, giving her all the information she can to avoid another snarky reply.

The woman sitting in front of her stops what she’s doing and finally looks at her. Green eyes lock on blue and she holds her gaze.

“U-Dub student?” she asks and Clarke nods. They’re _finally_ getting somewhere. But then Detective Woods shakes her head. “She was here yesterday. Filed the report, it’s in there.” She points at the stack of files to her left. “Haven’t had a chance to look into it yet, though. At a glance it seems like he’s just not answering her calls.”

Clarke shakes her head. “It’s more than that.”

That seems to pique her interest, her right eyebrow shooting up. “What do you know?”

Clarke contemplates whether or not to share any information with Detective Asshole, but decides she needs to give something in order to receive something in return. “He hasn’t been going to class, either.”

Detective Woods seems to consider the information for a second, but then she settles for a shrug. “Not everyone can have perfect attendance,” she says and stares at Clarke as if to silently add ‘like you’ _._ And what the hell does she know? Whether or not her assumption is true is inconsequential, because really, what does _she_ know?

“It’s not just that. Something seems–” she tries to come up with a good way to describe it, but she ends up settling for a simple, “off.”

The woman sitting across from her sighs. She puts her pen down, crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against her chair. Clarke can’t help but let her eyes roam; the black pantsuit and white button up shirt look really good on her.

“We’re the police, Miss Griffin. Maybe PI’s get the privilege to go after something that seems _off_ ,” she says, quoting her. Mocking her, almost. “We, on the other hand, need to work on evidence. Hard cold evidence, and so far his disappearance shows no sign of that.”

The chair Clake had been sitting on scratches the hardwood floor when she abruptly stands up. She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Thanks for nothing,” she says, irritated. What a waste of her time.

“Have a great afternoon, Miss Griffin,” the Detective calls after her and Clarke has to do everything in her power to not flip her off.

She practically storms off to her car, reaching it in no time. Furiously digging into her jacket, her fingers swim around the pocket until they come in contact with cold metal. Just as she’s grabbing the car keys to pull them out a hand softly touches her shoulder.

“Miss Griffin,” it’s Lincoln. He’s standing in front of her, holding a business card with his and Detective Wood’s name on it. “I apologize for my partner.”

Clarke scoffs. No one else should be apologizing for _her_.

“It’s okay,” she says, because really. It’s not his fault his partner is fucking dead inside.

“Workload has been crazy. We,” he swallows, lowering his voice. “We‘re currently understaffed, overworked and under strict instructions to not take any cases that aren’t objectively urgent.”

Clarke nods, dejected. “Got it.”

“But,” Lincoln says before Clarke can open her car door. “We’re interested in helping as much as we can. We _want_ to help,” he insists, and Clarke believes him. At least believes he wants to help. She’s not so sure about the other Detective currently sitting in the building. “If you find any additional information that may help escalate this, please let us know.” He hands her the business card he had been holding and heads back into the building.

Watching his retreating form, Clarke can’t help but think this is some weird ass level of good cop, bad cop.

::::

“How did it go?” Octavia asks as soon as Clarke walks into the meeting room. The TV is still on, but by the look of open laptops and scattered pieces of paper she can tell they’ve both been hard at work.

“It was mostly useless,” Clarke says with a resigned sigh, throwing her jacket onto one of the chairs before sitting down. “Detective Woods is a class A asshole.”

“That bad?”

Clarke shrugs. “Got a business card from her partner, Lincoln,” she says, dropping the card on the table for Octavia to look at and then file. “Said to let him know if we find anything else that may escalate the issue,” she says with a scoff.

“I’m telling you,” Raven interjects. “Cops are fucking useless.”

“I don’t know. This one seemed nice,” Clarke says, remembering Lincoln’s kind eyes as he apologized for not being able to do more. “He’s just stuck with a partner from hell.”

“She was that bad, huh?”

“Ugh, you have no idea,” Clarke says, leaning her head backwards and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can’t we just go back to cheaters? It’s so much easier.” She reaches for the remote control then, turning the TV off just as the news begin talking about a still-missing 8 year old.

She doesn’t want to think about missing people right now.

“I’m afraid not,” Raven answers her previous question, the way she says it catching Clarke’s attention.

“Did you find something?” Clarke asks, sitting up.

“Check this out.” Raven connects her computer back to the projector and turns it on. The screen is now mirrored on the wall. “So, I logged into Monty’s Insta–“

“Raven!” Clarke says. “What the hell, dude? I told you, no hacking yet.”

Raven looks at Octavia, then at Clarke. “Oh. You actually meant that?” A smile. “Oops.” And she doesn’t sound like she means that at all. Clarke should be mad that she didn’t listen, that she went completely against her orders, but the thought of having found something, of maybe being able to actually help, keeps her mouth shut and her attention completely focused on what’s displayed in front of her.

“So, you know how we thought it was weird this one guy, John Murphy, hadn’t commented anything at all on that last picture?” Clarke nods. “Well, I logged in to Monty’s Instagram to check his messaging history and I found,” she clicks the paper airplane icon and pulls up his chat history, quickly clicking on his exchange with John Murphy, “this.”

Clarke scans the page in front of her and her eyes widen.

 **John Murphy  
**> _WHAT THE FUCK MONTY  
__> I know it was you fucker  
__> Monty I swear to god  
__> Fucking answer me_  
_> Show your sorry ass to class, you fucking dick  
__> When you show your face around campus again I’m going to fucking kill you, Green. KILL YOU_

Each message more and more aggressive.

“When were these sent?” Clarke asks, leaning forward on her chair, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Take a guess,” Raven says.

“After the 12th?”

Raven nods, scrolling up to show the different dates. “These all happened in a span of three days. By Sunday he had stopped.”

“Whatever he presumably took from Murphy,” Octavia chimes in, “may be the reason why he didn’t show up to class on Friday.”

“And if Murphy actually did what he’s threatening to do,” Raven adds.

“Then that would explain why it’s Tuesday and no one has heard a word from him,” Clarke finishes. Oh, shit. They may actually have something here. 

“I think it’s time we paid John Murphy a little visit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full Disclaimer: I am not a detective, a police woman or a private investigator. My knowledge of the law, crime and police work extends to hours of watching crime-solving shows and that's about it. While I promise to try and be accurate and not completely out there, I can't say things may not come off a little unrealistic, because I am after all trying to write a story about two people who have to (begrudgingly) work together to solve a mystery and not the other way around.
> 
> So I hope you find this story interesting enough to look past any inaccuracies and enjoy it for what it is: just another Clexa story with some mystery, clues and crime solving thrown in the mix!
> 
> Thanks for reading :) Feel free to let me know what you think of this first chapter in the comments.


	2. Chapter Two

The weather is already shifting from fall into winter, even though it’s only mid-November. The cold, crisp air against Clarke’s face reminds her of this as she and Octavia walk through UW’s campus. It’s 10:30am and they are navigating their way toward the Chemistry building where John Murphy presumably has class. According to Raven he should finish at around 10:45am, which means they still have a few minutes to spare.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” Octavia asks from beside her, the collar on her winter coat pulled up so it partially covers her face and neck, coffee cup tightly secured in her hands. She blows into it a couple of times before taking a sip.

“Back where?” Clarke asks, keeping an eye out for anyone she may recognize from the pictures she and her team have been studying.

“To school,” Octavia replies as she looks around. There’s people all around them, probably in a hurry to get to class, books and backpacks held tightly as they try to navigate the crowd. 

“That was the plan,” Clarke says. “I always thought I would just take a year off and then find my way back,” she’s speaking softer now, like if she doesn’t say it loud enough the monsters that haunt her won’t come out. “But the business really took off, and I never found the passion for it again, so,” she ends with a shrug. It doesn’t matter anyway. She likes how things are now.

It may not be what she had imagined she would be doing when she was growing up, but there’s a certain comfort in knowing she’s not doing this for anyone but herself.

“I wonder if I would have liked it,” Octavia says with an air of longing in her voice. She takes another sip of her coffee, a puff of breath becoming visible with her next exhale. “They make it look like so much fun in the movies.”

Clarke laughs at that. “It’s not all it’s hyped up to be,” she says, remembering the two years she spent in Art School before she dropped out. “But you probably would have.” She takes a moment to consider her friend. “You still can.”

Octavia shoots her a smile. “I guess,” she seems to think about it for a second. “It wouldn’t be the same, though.”

Clarke looks around, trying to picture Octavia among the other students. “Probably not,” she agrees. “But you’re only 26, you’re still young enough to party with the crazy kids.”

They walk until they find a bench by the fountain and decide to wait there, their bodies turned to face the main entrance of the Chemistry building. Clarke takes her phone out of her pocket and taps the screen so it turns on. 10:43am. Murphy should be coming out any minute now.

She unlocks her phone and opens her email, pulling up Raven’s latest message. In it there’s an attachment. She opens it and John Murphy’s face covers her screen.

She nudges the woman sitting next to her. “Remember, this is what he looks like.”

“And we’re sure he’s here?” Octavia asks, taking a look at the picture and then scanning her surroundings. No sign of him yet.

“As sure as we can be.”

Raven had looked into what he had been up to the previous couple of weeks. Thanks to his and his friends’ need to share absolutely everything on social media, Raven was able to trace a pattern of locations and times and determined this to be the most likely location of their suspect.

They sit in silence for some time, looking around and trying not to draw attention to themselves. They see students walking by, most of them staring at their phones as they do. There could be a giant standing in the middle of campus and 98% of them wouldn’t even notice.

“You think he skipped?” Octavia asks under her breath.

“Maybe,” Clarke replies, frowning. If Murphy wasn’t involved in Monty’s disappearance there would be no reason for him to skip class. Even if he did, wouldn’t he want to establish some normalcy? Not draw attention to himself by missing class.

“10 o’clock,” Octavia elbows her, a subtle nod toward the main entrance. Sure enough John Murphy is walking out of the building and heading their way. Octavia and Clarke stand up, ready to intercept him.

He’s wearing an unzipped leather jacket, a thin white shirt visible underneath. Despite the cold temperature Clarke thinks he may be sweating. His face is red and his eyes keep darting in different directions.

“John Murphy?” Clarke says, stepping in his line of view, but he side steps her and keeps walking.

“Depends, who’s asking?” Murphy asks, but doesn’t slow down. Clarke and Octavia share a look before following him.

“Name’s Clarke. This is my friend Octavia.”

He finally stops and turns around, giving them a half-smile. “Oh, hey there.” He’s blatantly checking them out and Clarke shudders. She hates this part, dealing with suspects who think they have a shot with either one of them. “What can I help you with?”

He’s definitely sweating, but also jittery and frantic. He sniffles and runs a sleeve over his nose, his eyes darting left and right, unable to focus on anything for longer than a second or two.

“You feeling okay?” Clarke exchanges a worried look with Octavia who just shrugs in return.

“Fine,” he says, his eyes never meeting hers. His hands go into his jacket pockets, shuffle around, then come out empty. He repeats the motion with his pants.

“Do you need to see a doctor?” Clarke asks, wondering if maybe he’s running a high fever.

“I-I gotta go,” he replies. He turns around and starts walking again.

“We are here to talk about Monty Green.”

His steps falter, barely noticeable, but both Clarke and Octavia are trained to pay attention to the small details so they see the way his feet shuffle out of order before regaining a normal pace.

“Don’t know anything about him,” he says and it’s such a blatant lie it’s time to step up their game.

“Hey,” Octavia says firmly, reaching for his shoulder and stopping him in his tracks. “You have to stop.”

“I said I don’t know anything about him,” he repeats, shaking his shoulder to try and get Octavia’s hand off of him. She knows better, though, and her grip only tightens.

“Is that right?” He nods in response to Clarke’s question. “So you’re telling me you’re not friends with him?” she presses. He shakes his head. Clarke knows he’s lying, so she decides to use a different approach.

“Look, you’re not in trouble,” she tries. “We’re not cops. We simply want to know if you know what happened to him. His mom is worried sick.”

Those words appear to do the trick and he finally stops fighting. His shoulders drop as he takes a deep, shaky breath. He turns around to face them, eyes big, looking around before speaking in a low voice. “I don’t know what happened to him, okay? He is my friend,” he admits. “But I haven’t seen him since last week.”

“Any reason he would be avoiding you?” Octavia prods. It may be pushing it a little too far, but they need to get some information out of him. Even if it’s just to figure out what he’s willing to lie about.

He shakes his head. “No. Of course not. Why would he?” Panic laces his voice even as he tries to sound casual. They share another look. “I gotta go,” he says again and this time they do nothing to stop him. There’s only so much they are allowed to do as PI’s, but at least now they have his conversation with Monty and this encounter to approach the police with.

“If you can think of anything else,” Clarke calls after him, a card with her name and phone number written on it extended his way. “Let us know.”

He nods hurriedly, taking the card and walking away.

“Well, that was weird,” Octavia says.

“Tell me about it.”

::::

“You think this is going to be enough?” Octavia asks from the passenger’s seat in Clarke’s parked car, just a couple of blocks away from campus.

Clarke stares at the business card sitting on her lap and shrugs. “I hope so?” She knows it’s more of a question than an answer, but it’s all she can offer right now. Digging her cellphone out of her jacket, she brings it up and unlocks it. “Don’t know until we try, right?”

Looking between the business card and her phone, she dials the 10 digits printed on it and then brings the phone up to her ear. It rings a couple of times before someone finally picks it up.

“Detective Woods speaking.”

 _Shit_. _Shit, shit, shit, shit_. How did it not occur to her Detective Asshole could be the one to answer? Both names were on the damn business card. Clarke wants to bang her head against the steering wheel. Or crawl into a hole and disappear. Either one would work right now, honestly.

But instead she ends up taking a deep breath.

“Hello?” Detective Woods’ voice comes through once again.

“Uh, hi,” Clarke says. “May I speak with Lincoln, please?” She can feel Octavia looking at her curiously from her side.

“Detective Davies isn’t available right now. Who’s calling?”

“Um. This is,” Clarke clears her throat. “I’m Clarke. I was–”

“Miss Griffin?” the Detective asks and Clarke is surprised she remembers her.

“Yeah. Yes. Hi.”

A sigh reaches her ear. “How may I help you?” the tone in her voice has completely changed. Not that it was overly friendly when she first answered the phone, but now it’s even less so.

“I was hoping I could speak to Lin–” she stops herself. “Detective Davies.”

“As I mentioned, he’s currently unavailable. I’m sure whatever you needed him for, I can help with.”

Clarke sighs and Octavia looks at her quizzically. _What?_ she mouths. Clarke just rolls her eyes and brings the phone down to her lap, putting the call on speakerphone in response.

“It’s regarding Monty Green’s case,” she says, absently tracing patterns along the steering wheel with her index finger.

A tired sigh. “Miss Griffin, I–“

“You can call me Clarke,” she says.

“We discussed this already,” she continues, completely ignoring her. “We can’t do anything at the moment.” Clarke almost expects an _I’m sorry_ and if she were talking to anyone else that’s probably what she would hear next. But this is Detective Asshole and Clarke’s sure she’s pretty much dead inside and incapable of feelings, especially those regarding empathy and understanding.

Octavia reaches over her phone and hits the mute button.

“Fuck them,” she says. Clarke can tell she’s just as frustrated as she feels. “We’ll just do this on our own.”

“Hello? Are you still there?” the woman on the other side of the phone asks. Clarke shakes her head at Octavia, determined, and unmutes the call.

“Yes, still here,” she says and she knows she won’t take no for an answer. Detective Woods may not be willing to help, but Clarke knows Lincoln is and they need their help. There’s only so much they can do before needing the police to get involved and the sooner, the better. “Look, you said you couldn’t look into this without evidence. We th– we found some.”

“I realize you may enjoy playing cop–“

“When is Detective Davies going to be back?” Clarke interrupts, because she’s not about to sit here and be belittled by her. Or anyone. She’s dealt with enough assholes to know things can’t always go smoothly and if that’s how things are going to be with this case, then so be it.

The line goes silent and Clarke wonders if she’ll get lectured about social manners and how rude it is to interrupt someone when they’re speaking. Instead, the Detective says, “He should be back in about an hour.”

“Perfect,” Clarke says and just hangs up, not caring enough to say goodbye.

“Wow,” Octavia says from beside her. “You were not exaggerating.” She’s looking at Clarke’s phone, eyes wide.

Clarke shrugs. “We’ve dealt with assholes before. We can do this.”

::::

They stop by for a quick lunch before heading over to the police station. It’s busier today and they have to find parking around the corner instead of just outside the building. On their way over, Clarke had called Raven to ask her to send the screenshots of Murphy and Monty’s chat as well as the bonfire picture and the messages from his other friends.

With a tablet under Clarke’s arm and Octavia’s laptop bag hanging from her shoulder, they walk into the police station, heading straight for the front desk where they are greeted by the same man from the other day.

“Hey, Gustus,” Clarke greets with a smile.

“Good afternoon,” he says, tilting his hat in salute. He seems to recognize her. “Here to see Detective Woods again?”

Clarke shakes her head. “Detective Davies, actually.”

“Ah. Practically the same,” he says. “You know where to find him, I assume.”

Clarke just nods her thanks and they walk further into the precinct. Straight down the hall, to the left, look for the middle desk by the window, Clarke recalls as she leads Octavia in. Lincoln is sitting by his desk, Detective Woods nowhere to be seen.

“Lincoln,” Clarke says once they’re standing close enough. Lincoln turns his head around and smiles at the sight of her.

“Miss Griffin, right?” he asks.

“Please, call me Clarke,” she says and he nods. “This is my partner, Octavia Blake. We are here to discuss Monty Green’s case.”

Lincoln turns his attention to Octavia and Clarke is stuck curiously observing their interaction. Octavia holds out her hand, exchanging pleasantries, a smile Clarke rarely sees plastered on her face. Lincoln’s smile has turned brighter, if that was even possible, and their handshake manages to be both firm and delicate at the same time.

They stand there, shaking hands and smiling at each other and Clarke suddenly feels very out of place. She clears her throat and that’s enough to bring them both out of whatever trance they were in.

“As I was saying,” Clarke says, side-glancing Octavia who’s still eyeing Lincoln. “We have some information regarding Monty Green and his disappearance.”

Lincoln nods. “Detective Woods mentioned you may be stopping by. Please, follow me,” he says, his eyes darting to Octavia. Clarke wants to roll her eyes and puke at the same time.

Lincoln leads them just a few steps out the way they came and into a room on their left. _Interrogation Room #1_ is written on the door.

“Sorry, our conference room is currently being used,” he explains, closing the door behind him. There’s a table in the middle, two chairs on each side, false mirror on one of the walls. A camera with a flashing red light is pointing to the middle of the room.

All of this is new to them. Although they’ve collaborated with the police before it has never been in this capacity. Lincoln takes a seat in one of the chairs closest to the door, while Octavia and Clarke go around the table and sit opposite him.

“So, you found something?” Lincoln asks, pulling out a notebook and pen from his jacket. He places the notebook on the table and uncaps the pen, ready to take note. Clarke smiles at him.

“We think so. We’re hoping this will be enough,” Clarke says, willing to be more honest with him. She doesn’t feel the need to pretend like they know exactly what they’re doing. She places the tablet on the table, tapping and swiping until the information she needs is displayed on the screen. “This is what–“ the door opens, interrupting her explanation.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Detective Woods walks into the room, closing the door behind her.

“Is that…?” Octavia whispers, leaning in closer to Clarke. Clarke nods in response.

“Lexa?” Lincoln seems just as surprised to see her here. “I thought–“ he trails off, looking between the Detective and Clarke and Octavia. He stands up and walks closer to Detective Woods, grabs her arm and pulls her to the corner of the room.

They’re speaking in hushed whispers and Clarke can’t make out their entire conversation.

“You don’t have to–” she hears Lincoln say, but Detective Woods interrupts him. Clarke is trying not to listen, but words reach her ears here and there anyway. Words like ‘job’ and ‘duty’ and ‘capable’, but nothing Clarke can piece together into anything coherent.

Octavia leans in again. “What’s going on?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know,” Clarke says just as soft, feeling uncomfortable.

“I said I got it!” Detective Woods’ stern tone ripples through the room, making both Clarke and Octavia jump a little. Clarke sees Lincoln nod and next thing she knows both detectives are sitting across from them.

“You were saying…?” Lincoln supplies after a few seconds of awkward silence. Detective Woods is sitting beside him, looking like nothing happened. Clarke shares one last look with Octavia before continuing.

“I was telling Detective Davies we have found some additional information, which may shed a light into whether or not this is just a college student acting up,” Clarke says. She places the tablet on one side of the table so all of them can see. She goes through each picture and screenshot as she explains.

“This picture was taken last Tuesday. We believe they were at Golden Gardens,” Clarke says, picture of all four students gathered around a bonfire displayed on the screen. “These were messages left by some of the same kids on Monty’s Instagram. One of them, Harper, left a comment on his Instagram picture. Jasper tweeted at him,” Clarke briefly turns her attention to the detectives, both of them watching the screen without saying a word. She can see notes scribbled on Lincoln’s notebook.

“Both of these messages seem to indicate Monty’s absence from school is not normal. He also hasn’t posted anything new to any of his social media accounts. His average is at least 5 posts a week,” Octavia says, using the data Raven had provided them.

The detectives take the time to read both messages, Lincoln writing down the relevant names.

“This still isn’t enough–” Detective Woods starts.

“We also found this,” Clarke interrupts her, swiping one more time to display a screenshot of Monty and Murphy’s chat.

Detective Woods’ eyes narrow. “How did you get this?”

“That’s not important right now,” Clarke says, trying to redirect her attention to what matters.

“Like hell it isn’t,” Detective Woods replies, eyes blazing, but her voice never rises. “If this was obtained illegally, we can’t use this as admissible evidence, which means if–” she stops and reads. “If John Murphy is actually guilty we just lost a very important piece of information to use against him.”

Clarke sighs, exasperated. It’s like she honestly doesn’t want to help. “Hours ago you weren’t even looking into this case. _If_ he’s guilty and we can’t use this to convict him then we’ll find something else. That is not the point right now.”

“The point is,” Octavia says, and Clarke appreciates the attempt to move the attention back to the case instead of whatever animosity the Detective has against her. “We found this and so we went and talked to him.”

Detective Woods slams her fist on the table. “You had no right,” she grits through her teeth.

“With all due respect, _Detective_ ,” Clarke says, though she’s not conveying much respect at all. “Following a lead is part of our job. So that’s what we did.”

“ _Your_ job? You’re not a cop. You’re not the police. You have _no_ right to–”

There’s a knock on the door and a couple of seconds later it opens. A woman with short, dark hair wearing SPD’s uniform steps into the room. “Lexa, Lincoln? They’re here,” she says.

Clarke notices Detective Woods shoulders relax, although her face shows a completely different emotion. On second thought, her stance looks more defeated than anything. She nods and slowly stands up.

“Do you want me to?” Lincoln asks, standing up as well. Detective Woods shakes her head.

“No. I got this. Finish here and then come find us.” Lincoln nods, briefly placing a hand on the other detective’s shoulder. She ducks her head and says, “Excuse me,” before exiting the room.

“I’m sorry to cut this short,” Lincoln says. He picks up his pen and notebook, putting them away. “We will look into this.”

“What about John Murphy?” Clarke asks.

“We’ll bring him in, ask him what he knows.”

“Will you keep us informed?” Octavia asks and Lincoln nods, smiling softly.

“Of course.”

::::

“Do you believe they’ll actually keep us informed?” Octavia asks as they’re heading back to the car.

“I hope so,” Clarke replies. “But even if they don’t, we won’t stop digging. There’s something more to this than just someone going through a tough week and we’ll find out what.”

The car beeps as Clarke unlocks it, opening the driver’s door and getting in.

“Oh, shit,” Octavia says from the other side. She has opened the passenger’s door, but hasn’t sat down yet. “I just realized I forgot my laptop.”

Clarke remembers seeing Octavia putting her computer away, but she must have placed the bag down when they were saying goodbye.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Clarke reaches for the handle, ready to open the door.

“No, it’ll be a minute. I’ll be right back,” Octavia says, closing the door and heading back toward the building.

Clarke reaches for her phone while she waits, writing a quick message to Raven.

 **Clarke** **[2:13pm]:** _Not much info from them. Keep digging and let me know if you find anything else_

 **Raven [2:14pm]:** _You got it, boss_

Clarke puts her phone down and looks out the window. A figure coming out from what Clarke can only assume is the police parking lot comes into view. They get closer, stopping a few feet away from where Clarke sits in her car and it’s then that she realizes it’s Detective Woods.

She stops walking for a moment, her knees bending just slightly as she hunches forward, pressing her hands against her knees. She looks to be taking deep breaths and Clarke just observes her, curious. She seems a lot less collected than before.

Clarke watches her as she stands up, hands curled into fists now that they’re not on her knees anymore. She shakes her head a couple of times and seems to be whispering something to herself. A few short seconds later she’s back to her composed self and after taking a deep breath she heads back into the building.

Clarke wonders what has her so unraveled, but her thoughts are interrupted soon after when Octavia gets back in the car.

“What took you so long?”

Octavia shrugs. “My laptop wasn’t in the interrogation room, I had to find it.”

“Ready?” Clarke asks, putting the key in the ignition and turning the car on.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

::::

The following day all three women are at the agency working on Monty’s case. It’s cold and rainy outside, barely any light coming in through the windows of their downtown office. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the 15th floor if the clouds refuse to let any sunshine in between.

Clarke had decided they should focus all their time and resources to find out more information about Monty and both her business partners had agreed, happy to work on something new and far more exciting than catching cheaters. She had called Hannah Green, Monty’s mother, earlier that day to let her know they would be taking the case. She was so grateful Clarke couldn’t help but think they had made the right decision.

“Any word from the police station?” Clarke asks. They are once again in the meeting room, gathered around the table. Raven is scouting social media for anything they may have missed, while Octavia has been tracking Murphy’s movements.

“No,” Raven replies. “No calls or messages left.”

“They’re either not working on this like they said they would, or they are leaving us out of it,” Clarke says, picking up her phone. “I’ll just have to call and ask.”

“They’re working on it,” Octavia explains. “They’re just really busy right now.”

Clarke stops and looks at her, eyebrow raised. “How do you know?”

“Um,” Octavia smiles sheepishly. “No reason. Uh. Didn’t they say that, yesterday? That they would work on it, but they had a lot going on?”

“No,” Clarke says, eyeing her. “They said they were going to work on it, nothing about being too busy.”

“Oh.” Another smile from Octavia. “I just assumed they were busy because, you know, they’re the police. Aren’t they always busy?” Followed by a nervous laugh.

“O…” Clarke says. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“Nothing,” she says, all too quickly.

“She’s lying,” Raven says, turning her attention to Octavia, her laptop forgotten for the time being. “What’s up, Octavia? What are you hiding?”

“Nothing. I just assumed–”

“You’re a horrible liar,” Clarke says. “I’ve known you for far too long. Also, we’re private investigators, so. Spill.”

Octavia sighs. “I spoke with Lincoln.”

“The detective?” Raven asks.

“Yeah,” Octavia answers and can’t help the smile that creeps on her face.

“When?” Clarke asks.

“Last night.”

“You mean when we were there?”

“Uh, no. More like… last night over a couple of beers.”

“Octavia!” Clarke says and Raven snickers.

“Nice!” Raven says, raising her hand. Octavia high fives her. “Is he hot?” she asks.

“So not the point–” Clarke tries to say.

“Oh yeah,” Octavia replies at the same time. “Like, really hot.”

“Tell me more!” Raven says, pretending to gush. She leans her elbows on the table, resting her face in her hands. Straight out of a middle school sleepover.

Octavia opens her mouth to reply, but Clarke interrupts them. “Guys!” She glares at Raven before redirecting her attention back to Octavia. “Seriously, what were you thinking?”

Octavia shrugs. “What? I went back to get my laptop, slipped him my phone number, he called, we went out. No big deal.”

“No big deal? We are supposed to be working with them!”

“And sleeping with them, apparently,” Raven jokes. Clarke does not think she’s funny. At all.

“It’s not my fault you can’t get along with Detective Woods.”

“What does she have to do with anything? This isn’t about getting along. This is about being professionals,” Clarke says, running a hand through her hair. This is the last thing they need. “How are we supposed to be taken seriously when you’re sleeping with one of the detectives in charge of the case?”

“Okay, first of all,” Octavia says, holding a finger up. “Who said anything about sleeping? We just went on one date,” she glares at Raven before she can say anything. “And second of all, this won’t affect anything. We can still work together.”

Clarke covers her face with her hands and shakes her head. “Great. Just great.”

“Relax, Clarke,” Raven says, trying to appease the situation. “It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Clarke repeats, looking straight at Raven. “I just promised Monty’s mom we would work on his case. We can’t fuck this up,” she explains. “And we need the police if we want to solve this. You _know_ we can’t do this on our own. There’s restrictions, there’s things we simply can’t do as PI’s, Raven, and if this–”

“Hey,” Raven stops her, placing a hand over hers. “We’ll still solve this, okay? This won’t stop us from finding out whatever happened to him. Right, Octavia?”

Octavia nods. “Of course. This won’t get in the way of our investigation, I promise.”

“How do you know?” Clarke asks. ”What if the police department finds out and we can’t work on this case because of this? What if this is why they haven’t called us yet?”

“I–”

Clarke’s cell phone rings, interrupting their conversation. An unknown 206 number appears on her screen. She frowns before answering.

“Hello?”

“Miss Griffin?” It’s Detective Woods.

“Speaking,” Clarke says, holding her finger up to Octavia and Raven who are looking at her curiously.

“It’s Detective Woods.”

“I know,” Clarke says. “What can I help you with?” 

“We need you to meet us at the station. How soon can you be here?”

“Uh…” Clarke looks at the clock hanging on the wall. 12:30pm. There’s probably some lunch rush hour. “Around 30 minutes, give or take.”

“Great. I’ll meet you then,” Detective Woods says and hangs up. Clarke puts her phone down.

“Who was that?” Raven asks.

“Detective Woods. She wants me to meet her at the station.”

“Did she say why?” Octavia asks, worried. Clarke shakes her head.

“Better not be because you decided to date her partner,” Raven jokes and Clarke hopes it has nothing to do with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there's not a ton of Clarke and Lexa interaction yet, but I promise they'll spend more time together as the story goes on, so please bear with me.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter Three

Clarke arrives at the precinct almost twenty minutes later than she had anticipated and she can already imagine the scowl on the Detective’s face. She knows it’s her fault for underestimating lunch hour traffic, especially on a rainy day like today, but she had been taken by surprise when she received the phone call and didn’t take the time to think. Now she’s regretting her obvious lack of judgement.

The few feet between her car and the precinct’s door are enough to wet her hair and she shakes her head as soon as she walks in, running her fingers through it to push strands away from her eyes.

She expects to be led in by Gustus, but instead she’s greeted by Detective Woods, although ‘greeting’ might be a bit of a stretch. She’s standing by the main entrance, leaning up against the front desk, arms crossed in front of her chest. The only thing missing is her foot tapping and it would be the perfect definition of impatient.

She looks less than pleased to see Clarke, but pushes herself off the desk to approach her anyway.

“Miss Griffin, glad you finally decided to show up,” she says, because of course she wouldn’t just let it go.

“It’s hard to plan for traffic on such short notice, Detective,” Clarke replies dryly.

That seems to elicit a response from the Detective and she nods curtly. “We appreciate you being able to come on such short notice,” Detective Woods says as if suddenly remembering her manners.

Clarke is taken aback by the sudden change in the Detective’s attitude, but quickly changes her expression to seem unfazed. “Anything I can do to help,” she says, adding a small smile for good measure. She gets the feeling this is actually about the case she’s working on and has nothing to do with Octavia’s date with Lincoln, so she decides to drop any defensiveness she had gathered up on her way here.

“If you’d follow me,” Detective Woods says, turning around and walking further into the building without waiting for an answer.

“So what is this about?” Clarke asks, quickly following behind her. She doesn’t receive an answer. In fact, her question goes completely ignored. “It would be really helpful to know–“

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Detective Woods interrupts her and there it is again. Stone cold attitude is back.

With an exasperated sigh Clarke decides to drop it and silently follows the Detective past the hallway and to the left. She leads her through a door, opening it and letting Clarke go in first.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Detective Woods says before turning around and closing the door behind her.

Clarke finds herself in the observation room. It’s not very big, just enough space for a couple of chairs, both of which are facing the glass Clarke knows looks like a mirror when looked at from the adjacent room.

Her eyes land on the person sitting in the other room. She doesn’t even need to take a look at their face; she recognizes the jacket and the haircut. It’s John Murphy. Clarke walks closer to the glass and examines the room in front of her. He’s currently sitting in there by himself, two glasses of water on the table, which means someone was already in there talking to him. His glass is almost empty, while the other one remains full. He’s fidgeting just as much as he had been the day before when Clarke and Octavia had talked to him, intensified by his right leg currently bouncing up and down.

Her observations are interrupted when the door opens again. This time Detective Woods is accompanied by Detective Davies and a woman she hasn’t seen before.

“Good afternoon, Miss Griffin,” Lincoln says, extending his hand. Clarke smiles at him and shakes it, assuming his formality has something to do with the two women in the room.

“Miss Griffin,” the woman standing beside him says, bringing Clarke’s attention to her. “I’m Sergeant Anya Dhakal. It’s my understanding that you're a private investigator looking into the disappearance of Monty Green?”

Clarke regards the woman in front of her and nods. The Sergeant is a couple of inches taller than she is, but looks just as intimidating as Lincoln would if he wasn’t always smiling. She stands with her back straight, staring down at her and Clarke wonders if ‘intimidating’ is part of the job description, because if she were standing on the opposite side of that fake mirror she’s sure all three of them could get even the darkest secrets out of her.

“Hannah Green, Monty’s mother, hired me to look into the disappearance of her son,” Clarke adds once she realizes Anya is waiting for further explanation.

Anya nods, her eyes inquisitive. “Does your agency have all its credentials up to date?”

“Yes,” Clarke replies with a nod.

“And you’ve had experience working on cases like this before?”

Clarke opens her mouth to respond, but quickly closes it, wondering what the best way to answer that question is. Should she lie? There’s probably no use, their inexperience will probably show at some point and she’d rather be honest from the beginning than have to explain herself later.

“No,” she admits, settling for honesty. “We haven’t worked a case like this before, but we have been in the PI business for over five years now.” She catches Detective Woods looking at her curiously.

“What kind of cases have you handled until now?” Anya asks her and Clarke sighs because she knows her answer will most certainly take credibility from her agency and the work they do. Nevertheless, she lifts her chin and replies confidently.

“We catch cheaters and look into fraud allegations,” she says, tone firm and her eyes never leaving the Sergeant’s.

“This is ridiculous,” she hears Detective Woods protest from the Sergeant’s side. “We are  _ not _ –“

“Detective Woods,” Anya warns firmly and the Detective closes her mouth, not without a loud huff. Clarke looks at her, daring her to say more, but she simply avoids her gaze and looks into the other room instead.

“Have you already signed a contract with Ms. Green?”

“Yes,” Clarke confirms. “The paperwork is at our office. I can have one of my associates forward it to you.”

Anya exchanges a look with Detective Woods, who just nods. The Sergeant turns her attention back to Clarke. “For record keeping purposes please forward the documents as soon as possible. In the meantime, we would like you to start collaborating with us on this case.”

Clarke looks at the woman in front of her trying her hardest to hide the surprise from her face. She wonders what provoked this change in attitude, from ‘we are not even looking into this’ to ‘we would like you to help us’.

Deciding to leave the questions for later, Clarke nods. “Where do we begin?” she asks, ready to start doing something. All this talk is nice, but Clarke can’t help but feel like they’re wasting their time with all this bureaucracy.

“We’ll begin by having you and Detective Woods interrogate John Murphy,” Anya says, her eyes moving into the other room where he’s sitting, as nervous and fidgety as ever.

“Sergeant,” Detective Woods says in protest. “I need to keep handling–“

“Enough, Detective,” Anya says, interrupting her for the second time this afternoon. Clarke watches as Detective Wood’s face contorts, her fists clenching by her side. “Lincoln will take care of that. I need you here right now.”

“The family needs…” she trails off after Anya gives her one last warning look. “Yes, Sergeant,” she says instead, nodding curtly.

“I promise working with me isn’t as horrible as you’re imagining it to be,” Clarke says in an attempt to lighten the mood. Lincoln offers her a small smile, but neither the Sergeant nor the other Detective seem to find her comment the least bit amusing.

“Get to work,” Anya says before leaving the room.

“I’ll be right back,” Detective Woods says, following Anya out. Clarke can hear muffled voices on the other side of the door, the Detective clearly not done with her attempt to avoid working with Clarke.

“Can’t you do this with me instead?” Clarke asks Lincoln. He chuckles in response and shrugs.

“Sorry, Sergeant’s orders.”

Clarke had figured as much, but it was worth a shot.

“You can have Octavia send me the contract,” he says and Clarke has to fight the laugh that bubbles in her chest, because he couldn’t have been any more obvious if he had tried.

“Yeah, I’ll tell Raven to give it to you,” Clarke says, watching him closely to see if he shows any signs of disappointment at all, but his face is nothing but professional when he nods. She reaches into her pocket for her phone and sends a quick text to Raven asking her to send Lincoln the signed contract.

The door opens and Detective Wood’s head comes into vision. “Are you ready?” she asks Clarke, irritation clear in her voice.

Clarke briefly looks at Lincoln. “Wish me luck,” she mutters before leaving the room and following the Detective into Interrogation Room #1.

::::

“Finally,” John Murphy greets them as soon as they enter the room. He’s reclining against his chair, feet propped up on the table and hands resting behind his head.

“Sit properly,” Detective Woods instructs before taking a seat on one of the empty chairs. Clarke follows suit, taking the seat beside her.

“I’ve been here for the past two hours, don’t I deserve to get comfortable?” Murphy asks, but lowers his feet anyway. His eyes move from Detective Woods to Clarke. “Ah. I see they listened to me,” he says, smiling at Clarke. “Hi again.”

Clarke looks at him, confused.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Detective Woods says, placing a folder with Murphy’s name on it on the table and opening it to reveal the information contained inside.

“I told them that I wouldn’t talk to them if you weren’t here,” Murphy says to Clarke and suddenly everything makes perfect sense. Why they would call her and ask her to participate. Why they would be just now starting the interrogation when it was clear someone had already been in here with him. 

Clarke casts a sideways glance at the Detective who looks more than annoyed at Murphy for revealing that piece of information. Clarke has to try really hard to not gloat.

“Well, I’m here now,” Clarke says, offering him a small smile. She doesn’t want to come off overly friendly, but he seems to be the reason she’s sitting here right now, so she might as well stay on his good side.

“As we previously informed you, we brought you here today because we’re investigating the disappearance of Monty Green, a fellow student at U-Dub,” Detective Woods says, cutting straight to the chase. “Do you know him?”

Murphy crosses his arms in front of his chest in an obviously defensive move. “I assume if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here.”

“Is that a yes?” the Detective asks him. Clarke notices the subtle signs that she’s getting frustrated, minor details like the way her lips form a straight line, the way her fingers tighten around the pen she’s holding. Murphy’s getting under her skin and he’s enjoying every second of it.

Murphy shrugs. “You can take that however you want,” he says defiantly. He is not making this any easier on himself and Clarke’s afraid he doesn’t know who he’s messing with.

“You think this is some sort of game?” Detective Woods asks. She pushes herself away from the table and stands up, flipping through the folder until she finds a picture. She slams it down and Clarke sees Monty’s face when the Detective moves her hand away. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you know him or not?”

Murphy stares at the picture for a brief second before looking away, leaving the question unanswered.

Clarke sighs and leans forward on the table. She reaches for the picture and brings it closer to herself. She examines it –pretends to, anyway– seeing out of the corner of her eye how Murphy looks at her curiously.

“We know you’re his friend,” Clarke says softly. “We’re just trying to help find him,” she lifts her gaze to meet Murphy’s. He seems to relax, finally dropping his arms. His hands come to rest on the table.

“Yes. We were friends,” he admits with a sigh.

“Were?” Detective Woods asks, her tone far less friendly than Clarke’s has been.

“Are– I mean, are,” Murphy is quick to correct.

“Did something happen between the two of you?” Detective Woods asks, looking for the answer she already knows. Instead of complying, Murphy decides to lie.

“No, nothing,” he says, shaking his head and averting his eyes to the side. He’s a horrible liar.

“That’s a lie!” Detective Woods says, slamming her hand on the desk once again. How she manages to be so assertive without even raising her voice, Clarke doesn’t know, but it’s clearly effective because she startles Murphy and he visibly swallows.

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” he stutters.

“Then explain this,” the Detective says as she pulls another piece of paper from her folder, placing it in front of him. It’s the screenshot of his last messages to Monty.

Clarke looks at it and then at their suspect who is even paler than before, like a deer caught in headlights.

“How did you–“

“Explain this, John,” Detective Woods says, pushing the paper further in front of him.

“Murphy,” he hisses. “Don’t call me John.”

“What is this,  _ John _ ?” Detective Woods insists, because of course she doesn’t listen. Clarke is torn between feeling relieved it was nothing personal when she refused to call her Clarke or offended because she basically treated her like one of her suspects. Murphy simply stares at the detective, refusing to acknowledge her question if she’s going to ignore his request. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?”

Clarke’s eyes widen at the bold accusation. Murphy’s also taken by surprise, but he’s apparently more worried about his pride than his freedom, because he remains silent.

“That’s okay. I don’t really need more than this to throw your ass in jail,” the Detective says, reaching over to grab the piece of paper. “We’ll see you in court,” she says, putting the screenshot of the conversation back in her folder and getting ready to stand up.

Clarke looks between them, torn. She has no place in this fight, if this is how the police department decides to handle the case she knows she doesn’t have a say in it, but it also doesn’t seem fair. The detective is just throwing accusations around and this doesn’t even begin to solve their problem. Assuming Murphy did it just because he’s refusing to cooperate doesn’t mean he  _ actually _ did it and Clarke can’t just sit there and let him go to jail for a crime no one is certain he committed.

“Wait a second,” she speaks up. “We don’t even know if he did it,” she says to the Detective before turning around to address Murphy.

“Of course he did. We have proof,” Detective Woods says, but she has stopped heading towards the door.

“That’s not enough,” Clarke says. “Murphy, come on. Talk to me. What happened? What’s this conversation about?”

Murphy moves in his seat, looking between Detective Woods and Clarke. He takes a deep breath and says, “Fine. I wrote that, yes. But I didn’t mean it–”

“Please, it’s so obvious–“

“Let him finish!” Clarke interrupts, because damn. Can’t this woman keep her mouth shut? They’re finally getting somewhere and she doesn’t want Murphy to close off again because Detective Woods won’t stop her witch hunt. The Detective regards her with a single raised eyebrow, but stops talking.

Murphy looks between the two of them before turning his attention back to Clarke. “I didn’t mean it. I was mad at him, but I wasn’t going to hurt him.”

“Why were you mad?” Clarke asks. Detective Woods remains standing, but has taken her notebook out and has her pen ready to begin writing his answer down.

“He took something from me,” Murphy says vaguely and Clarke can see him closing off again.

“What did he take?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, shrugging.

“It does if it may help us determine what happened to him.” He looks at the detective, worried. “Was it drugs? They won’t arrest you, I promise,” Clarke says, looking over her shoulder at the Detective, waiting for some sort of reassurance, but she remains silent. Clarke sighs and turns back to Murphy. “You’re here about a missing person, not because you were doing drugs.”

“It’s not drugs,” he says.

“Then what?”

“It’s, um. It’s some pills,” he says, looking away. Clarke can see his leg beginning to bounce.

“What kind of pills?”

“Concentration pills,” he mutters. “They help with school.”

Clarke frowns. She has heard about those, pretty sure she took one or two at some point to help study. “Why wouldn’t you want to tell us that? It’s no big deal.”

“These– they’re different?” He sounds unsure.

“Different how?” Detective Woods chimes in, walking closer and finally sitting back down next to Clarke. Murphy shoots a questioning look at Clarke who just nods.

“They are stronger. They last longer,” he’s beginning to rub his hands together, and when that doesn’t seem to appease him he cracks his knuckles instead.

Clarke looks at him, piecing things together. “Is that why you’re like this?” she asks, motioning towards his hands. “Why you’re so restless?”

“I haven’t had one since Monty stole mine last week,” he says, running a hand through his greasy hair.

“They’re addictive?” Clarke asks, although she thinks the answer is obvious. He shrugs in response.

“Not that I know of.”

“Where did you get them?” Detective Woods asks.

“Someone was handing them out at a party a couple of months ago,” he says. “I don’t remember who, though.” Clarke doesn’t believe him, but decides not to press on the matter right now. She exchanges a look with the detective who seems to be thinking the same.

“Why would Monty take your pills? Did he run out of his?” Clarke asks instead.

Murphy shakes his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was taking any. He’s pretty good with school stuff, I didn’t think he needed them.”

“Then why do you think he took them?”

“He’s the last person I saw near my bag. That’s where I had them.”

“When was this?” Detective Woods asks.

“Last Tuesday,” he says, swallowing hard. Clarke knows why, it’s the same day Monty disappeared. “But I swear I didn’t do it.” He leans forward, eyes pleading. “I didn’t see him after that, haven’t even heard from him since then.”

Clarke nods. “I believe you,” she says, because she does. Murphy’s clearly not the most collected person out there, but he seems like he has enough problems as it is. Going after Monty is probably not one of his priorities.

“Who else has taken these pills?” Detective Woods asks.

“What does that have to do with Monty’s disappearance?” he counters, still unwilling to offer Detective Woods any additional information.

“I’m the one who asks the questions around here,” Detective Woods replies harshly.

“We want to look at every possibility,” Clarke says, hoping to stop Murphy from closing off again because of the Detective’s attitude. “Maybe it has nothing to do with it, or maybe it does, but we need to make sure we explore every option.”

Murphy nods. “From our friends I know I saw Jasper try it once or twice,” he says. The Detective writes down the name.

“Jasper Jones?” she asks and he nods. “Who else?”

“Maybe Harper.”

“Maybe?” Detective Woods pushes.

“Look, I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what my friends do all the time. So, yeah, maybe,” he repeats.

Clarke watches as the Detective writes down the last bit of information before looking at Murphy again. “Thank you for your help,” she says, standing up. Murphy immediately does the same.

“Does this mean I can go?” he asks, his eyes betraying how eager he is to get out of there. They’re almost burning a hole through the door.

“Yes,” Detective Woods says. “But don’t stray too far. We may need to speak with you again,” she says and Murphy nods before making his exit. Once he’s gone, Detective Woods turns her attention to Clarke.

“You did good,” she says.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Someone had to.”

“Exactly.”

“You were– wait, what? Did you just agree with me?”

There’s a faint upward tug on the Detective’s lips and Clarke’s frozen in place because she’s pretty sure this is the first time she’s ever seen any display of positive emotion coming from the woman standing in front of her, no matter how small or almost imperceptible it may be.

“Yes, I did,” she answers with a knowing look, arms crossed over her chest.

“Did you just– did you just make me  _ good cop _ ?” Clarke asks, incredulous.

Detective Woods shrugs and Clarke wants to smack that smug look off her face (not really, but God can she be infuriating).

“I can’t believe you!” Clarke says, offended at being played. And her pride hurt at not even realizing it.

“Didn’t think you had it in you to be bad cop.”

“I–” Clarke huffs. “I can be the bad cop,” she says, almost pouting but not quite because she has at least a little bit of decorum.

Detective Woods laughs –actually  _ laughs _ , head thrown back and everything– this time and Clarke’s too distracted by the way it lights up the Detective’s face to actually be offended. So instead she just sits there, appreciating the other woman’s face and thinking she wouldn’t mind working with Detective Woods if she got to see this side of her more often.

“Maybe next time you can try and fail miserably,” Detective Woods says.

“Next time, huh?” Clarke asks, standing up and gathering her things. “So, you’re going to stop trying to get away from having to work with me?”

“I wouldn’t stop if I knew there was even the slightest chance,” Detective Woods replies, but there’s a slight hint of teasing in her voice. “Sadly, the Sergeant’s pretty determined I work on this case with you, so,” she shrugs.

“Aw,” Clarke says, bringing a hand to her heart. “You flatter me,” she says and can’t help but smile when the Detective rolls her eyes.

“Go home, Miss Griffin,” Detective Woods says, but her tone is far from hostile.

“Clarke,” Clarke says, sighing. “Please, just call me Clarke.”

Detective Woods regards her in silence for a few seconds, so Clarke explains, “It’s just too formal.” A shrug. “I know. I know this is professional and important, but you calling me by my first name won’t change any of that.”

Detective Woods seems to think about it. “Okay,” she says.

Clarke flashes her a bright smile. “Really? Awesome. Does that mean I can call you Lexa?” she asks.

“Good night, Clarke,” she replies instead, completely ignoring her question and Clarke can’t help but chuckle, because of course it wouldn’t be this easy.

“‘Night,  _ Lexa, _ ” she says with a twinkle in her eyes. Lexa stifles a laugh and shakes her head.

“You’re a nightmare,” Lexa says, keeping a straight face.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Clarke replies, her voice an octave lower than even she had expected. Lexa seems surprised at the change as well and just stares at her. “I, um, I’ll see you soon,” Clarke says hurriedly, trying to leave before she has any chance to think twice about  _ why _ she said what she said the way she said it.

Lexa just nods at her retreating form and within a couple of minutes Clarke is in her car, pulling out of the parking lot and heading back to the office.

::::

Clarke spends the next hour stuck in traffic, deeply regretting her decision to go to the office instead of home. Rush hour traffic is now at its peak and her commute downtown brings her right to the middle of it. She sighs as she watches the light change in front of her from green to red for the third time, only a couple of cars making it through the intersection each time. Her phone buzzes from the passenger’s seat and she catches Octavia’s name on the screen along with a message saying  _ Where are you? _ . She thinks about replying, but decides against it.

She knows both Raven and Octavia are waiting for her to come back and she enjoys torturing her friend. Let her sit there and think she’s in trouble for making the irresponsible decision of going out on a date with the Detective they could be working alongside with. She will savor the moment for as long as she can.

She makes it back to the office 10 minutes later and expectant eyes greet her as soon as she walks into the meeting room.

“Finally!” Octavia says, standing up and walking over to her. “How did it go? What did they say?”

“Well…” Clarke drags her response. “They found out about you and Lincoln and said we can’t work on the case anymore.”

“What?” The look on Octavia’s face is priceless and it takes all her willpower for Clarke not to laugh right there and then. “This is bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit, are you fucking kidding me?” Octavia has began pacing, fuming.

Clarke laughs then. “I’m just kidding.”

“You– why– Clarke!” Octavia smacks her arm and Clarke laughs louder. “You suck, you know that?”

Clarke shrugs, looking at Raven. “Did you send them the contract?”

Raven nods. “As soon as you asked me.”

“You knew?” Octavia asks Raven, offended. “You saw me sitting here, worried I had screwed things up and you didn’t say a thing?”

Raven lifts her hands up in feign innocence. “I just did as I was told,” she says. When Clarke had texted her asking for the contract she specifically asked her to not say anything to Octavia yet. Partly because she wasn’t entirely sure that wouldn’t come up and also because she thought it would be funny to let her freak out for a little bit longer.

“You guys are the worst,” Octavia says, sitting back down with her arms crossed. “Well, so, what did they want?”

“They asked for our help,” Clarke says, taking a seat as well. “They want to work with us on the case.”

“Really?” Raven is surprised and Clarke can’t blame her. Everything up until now screamed quite the opposite.

“Yeah. Lexa and I questioned Murphy.”

“Lexa, huh?” Octavia asks, a small smile on her lips. “Not Detective Woods anymore?”

Clarke looks away, hoping the room is dark enough to hide the way her cheeks are turning pink. “Lexa, Detective Woods, same thing,” she says nonchalantly.

“Hm.” Clarke catches them exchanging looks. “You had never called her Lexa before.”

Clarke shrugs, pretending it’s no big deal even though she felt a sense of accomplishment after calling her Lexa and not getting her head bitten off for it. “Figured if we’re going to be working together might as well be on a first name basis.” At least that much is true.

“So can I call her Lexa?” Raven asks with a smirk. You could try, Clarke thinks but doesn’t say anything.

“You know, it’s funny. I only started calling Lincoln by his first name when we went on our date,” Octavia teases and Clarke glares are her.

“Well, that was literally less than 24 hours after meeting him, so. I’m not surprised. You move fast,” she says, her implication clear. Octavia opens her mouth to reply, but Clarke cuts her off by saying, “Anyway, will you both drop it with the insinuations and focus on what matters?” she says because she doesn’t want to talk about Lexa.

She can’t. Not like that, not in any way that is not strictly professional because her departing statement had been inappropriate enough. She has to work with her. Just work with her and that allows room for absolutely nothing else.

“You are no fun,” Octavia mutters and Clarke just rolls her eyes at her.

“So, how did it go with Murphy?” Raven asks, always quick to stir things back to business when necessary.

Clarke proceeds to fill them in, telling them every detail she remembers and avoiding unnecessary ones (like how Lexa forced her hand and turned her into the good cop). Raven and Octavia are listening intently and she can already see their minds at work.

“These pills Murphy mentioned, did he give a name?” Octavia asks.

“No,” Clarke shakes her head. “He was very defensive about the whole thing, didn’t want to provide a lot of information. He pretended he didn’t recall who gave him the pills to begin with. He also said he wasn’t aware they were addicting, but if you had seen him… he was definitely going through withdrawal.”

“I will go back to campus, ask around,” Octavia offers. “See if I can get my hands on one.”

Clarke nods in agreement. “In the meantime, I will need you to try and find anything you can about it, Raven. I know it will be tricky considering we don’t have a name to look for, but see if there’s any information about it on any local newspapers. Any information regarding improved performances, anything that may help us find the scope of it.”

“You got it,” Raven says, typing away on her computer.

“We can call it a night,” Clarke says after checking the time. “We will meet again tomorrow afternoon, share anything we may have found along the way.”

They gather their things and exit the building together. Raven is the first one to say goodbye, heading a couple of blocks south to wait for the bus.

“You need a ride?” Clarke asks the girl standing next to her.

Octavia shakes her head and looks around. “No, I’m– I’m heading over to Six Arms to grab a drink.”

“Lincoln?” Clarke asks with a sigh, not really needing the confirmation. Octavia simply nods. “O…”

“I know, I know. I–”

“Look, you’re an adult and you know what you’re doing. I’m not going to stand here and tell you who you can and can’t date. If– If you really like this guy, go for it. Just be careful, okay? This cannot cost us the investigation. If there ever comes a point in time where you have to choose, I will make you choose.”

Octavia looks at Clarke and nods. “I know. And I understand. But Lincoln, he’s–“ she stops herself, blushing and Clarke can’t help but smile at her friend. She can’t remember the last time she saw her like this.

“I hope he’s worth it,” Clarke says, shoving her lightly in the direction of the bar. “Have a good night.”

“You too, Clarke,” Octavia says with a smile, wrapping her coat tightly around herself and walking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :) and to those who have left kudos and comments. I love reading all the theories :D


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